Weeks after my final round of The Reaper's Game, my phone had rung for the first time since I had come back. Maybe I would have been happy about it if that phone call didn't come at 3:27 AM. It was from an unsaved number as well, which made it ten times creepier.

"Neku?"

"Who is this?" I asked right away.

The person on the line sighed. "You haven't added my number, have you?"

At this point I had recognized the voice. "Shiki? Why the hell are you calling me at..." I paused to check the time. "fucking 3:30 AM?"

"I think the real question is why my number isn't saved on your phone." She was trying to be cute. Too bad it wasn't going to make me any easier on her.

I yawned, tired and annoyed. "I'm hanging up now." My thumb reached over the "end call" button, but it paused when I heard a shout from the speakers.

"Wait!"

Dammit. I put the phone back to my ear. "What? What could you possi-" I stopped when I heard this strange and disturbing noise from Shiki's side of the call. My ears finally woke up and I sat up, pretty worried. "Are you crying?"

Shiki sniffled. "I...I had a nightmare."

I raised an eyebrow. "'Bout what?"

"Well," She took a deep breath."we were back in The Reaper's Game...and I was back in Eri's body."

There was silence. "Is that it?" I asked, slightly annoyed again.

"No!" I heard a couple more sniffles. "Anyway, you were there as my partner, and we were facing off some Noise-" I immediately thought I knew where this was headed.

"And you died, right?"

More silence. Jesus, was she trying to be overdramatic? We all have nightmares. I like Shiki and all, but she can be such a drama queen, like every other 15 year old girl in Shibuya.

"No." Her voice was eerily calm. "You did." Now it was interesting. I guess seeing someone else die in your dream is a bit more scary than just dying and waking up. "And Beat started yelling at me...Rhyme started crying...and..." Shiki continued to stutter a bit. "Joshua just laughed. And it was all my fault because I'm supposed to protect my partn-"

"Who cares?" I blurted out. Crap, that came out wrong. I could hear her start to shout at me.

"Neku!"

"No, no!" I tried to correct myself before she got even more upset. "I meant who cares about The Reaper's Game now? It's behind us. It literally just doesn't matter now. The protecting your partner, the Noise," I sighed. "even Joshua. None of it matters."

That stupid, fucking silence. I was so tempted to just close my eyes and fall asleep, just pretend this never happened and I hadn't given her a lecture about stuff she can't even control. But I couldn't leave people like that anymore. Especially Shiki.

I knew she was still there, because her breathing was insanely loud. I decided to speak again. "Look, you're not the only one."

"...really?"

"Yeah, I'm not having nightmares about you dying or whatever...but I constantly have to remind myself that the games are over. That I'm alive again. And thanks to me, you are too." I smiled to myself.

Shiki giggled. "Whatever..."

Okay, good, she laughed. We were making progress there. "Anyway, Rhyme nearly was erased for good. Beat almost lost his sister. We just need to remember that it's done. We did it."

"You get really deep in the middle of the night."

I laughed at that. "Don't get used to it."

Shiki went back to serious mode again. "It's just...seeing myself in Eri's body...seeing you get erased...I guess it's just overwhelming to be back in a helpless situation. I just needed to talk and well, cry."

If this were the old me, I would have probably hung up ten minutes ago. I'm so glad I finally have some fucking emotions now. I'm glad I helped my friend.

"Are you okay now?" I asked.

"I think so." Shiki yawned. "Sorry for keeping you up."

"It's okay."

Shiki yawned again. "Goodnight, Neku. Thanks for listening to me."

I sunk back into my bed and smiled slightly. My eyes began to close, until I realized my phone was still pressed against my ear.

"Night, Stalker."

I don't know where that came from, to be honest. I was just thinking about TWEWY literally like a year after I beat it. Then this happened. My fanfiction writing might be a little rusty, as the last time I wrote fanfiction was like a year and a half ago and was for...*shudder* Victorious.

Don't expect too much from me, seriously. This might be the first and last fic that I write for this fandom.

Thanks to A Broken Pencil for reading this at 5 AM and convincing me to upload it.

Remember to review if you have any comments for me! Hope this was enjoyable.

-Nikki